LEEDS, July 1: Rodney Marsh said on Tuesday that England should not worry too much about the next Ashes series but concentrate their energies on peaking for the 2007 World Cup.

Former Australia wicket-keeper Marsh, now an England selector and the head of the country’s cricket academy, was speaking at Headingley after the provisional 15-man academy squad was announced.

“The mission statement of the ECB (England and Wales Cricket Board) is to be the best team in five-day cricket in the world and win the World Cup in 2007.

“In 2005 a 2-2 draw (in the Ashes series) would be a nice platform to build on,” added Marsh, who said the academy squad would be selected with the accent on one-day cricket.

England have not won an Ashes series against Australia, now the best team in the world, since Mike Gatting’s men won ‘down under’ in the 1986-87 season.

In October the academy squad will gather for the first time at England’s new national academy in Loughborough, central England.

Marsh, previously in charge of the Australian academy in Adelaide, said of the new venue: “It will be the best indoor cricket centre in the world by far.”

After their stint at Loughborough, the academy squad will tour Malaysia and India from Jan 26 to March 4 2004.

Marsh added that Under-19 players had been deliberately excluded from the shortlist and would not feature in the final line-up because of the Under-19 World Cup in Bangladesh.

The final academy squad will be named by England’s chairman of selectors, David Graveney, along with the other touring parties, at the end of the season.

Provisional squad: Kadeer Ali (Worcestershire), Simon Francis (Somerset), Alex Gidman (Gloucestershire), Will Jefferson (Essex), Shaftab Khalid (Worcestershire), Michael Lumb (Yorkshire), Tom Lungley (Derbyshire), Sajid Mahmood (Lancashire), Philip Mustard (Durham), Graham Napier (Essex), Kevin Pietersen (Nottinghamshire), Matthew Prior (Sussex), Bilal Shafayat (Nottinghamshire), James Tredwell (Kent) and Graham Wagg (Warwickshire).—AFP